


memento mori

by starryjoonie



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Blood and Injury, Death, Explicit Language, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of major character death, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Post-Break Up, Religious Cults, Romance, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Survival, Violence, Zombies, background kun and taeil, background luwoo - Freeform, background ten and taeyong, for some of them, i mean it when i say major character death, inspired by Train To Busan, johnjae are ex-bfs, markhyuck if you squint, relationships mentioned in tags may not be endgame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:47:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22340545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryjoonie/pseuds/starryjoonie
Summary: The zombie apocalypse starts in Seoul, South Korea at 2:34PM on March 28, 2020. Lee Jeno's and Jung Jaehyun's lives are put on hold.It has mercy on no one, they learn, on the journey to Busan, the only safe place in the country. Their paths cross with many others on the way as they are forced to fight for their lives.-in which the twenty-one members of nct are caught in the zombie apocalypse. Inspired by the movie Train to Busan
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Nakamoto Yuta, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter One- Jeno POV

_Incheon, South Korea  
March 28, 2020, 2:46 PM_

“I’ll miss you guys.” Jeno hugs his mother first, remembering how the hug feels because he won’t be seeing her for a while. It’s tight and comforting and he finds himself closing his eyes in her embrace.

She sways from side to side, holding her son close. “Don’t forget to call us…” She pulls away and looks into his eyes, placing one of her hands on his cheek. “I miss when you were younger and you lived at home. You’re so much older now, sweetheart, and I can only see you through a screen instead of going to your bedroom.” Jeno swears he sees tears forming in her eyes.

“He’ll be back in the summer,” his father reminds, breaking her out of her trance. He gives his son a warm smile. “Call us and let us know how the university visit goes, okay? Make sure not to miss your train back to Daejeon.” 

Jeno rolls his eyes. “I’m not as forgetful as you two, you know that. But yes, I will call.” He steps forward and pulls his father into a hug, keeping it brief as they got to the airport a little later than planned. “I’ll call when I land, too.”

His mother nods, a bittersweet expression occupying her face. She got her week of seeing her son, for the first time in a while. It won’t be long before the semester is over and he can come back home, though. Jeno keeps this thought in his mind when he bids them farewell and heads off in the massive airport to get through security and then find his gate. 

When he sits down in the boarding area, he sends off a text to Renjun, his friend he had visited in Seoul. “I’ll be boarding in a couple minutes, I’ll let you know when I land.” 

He gets a reply almost instantly: “Okay! Hope you had a good birthday.”

Jeno had gone home for his twentieth birthday, which was earlier in the week, which also happened to be the spring break at the university he attends. He goes to KAIST in Daejeon, but he will be flying to Busan due to a university research presentation in their biology department. There’s an opportunity of doing postgraduate research there, and he wants to be prepared, despite being only a sophomore.

He’s always been a little overprepared in his educational life, and he likes it that way. He wants to be as ready for the “real world” as he can be. 

His phone buzzes, and he looks into his lap to see that he’s received a text from Donghyuck, his roommate. “Have you gotten on your flight??”

“Not yet, we’re about to get on. I’ll be in Busan around 3:50PM,” he replies, before getting up to board the plane.

His seat is near the back of the plane, next to the window. Once he’s settled down, his backpack up on the overheard compartment, he turns airplane mode on and puts in his AirPods.

The seats around him fill up quickly. It doesn’t take very long before the safety video is played and the flight takes off.

Jeno has never liked airplanes that much. The turbulence at take-off and landing have always given him anxiety. Plus, he always feels contained, in a small piece of metal so high in the sky. He’s nauseous thinking about it, so he focuses on his music and the cookie that the flight attendant gave out. He nibbles on it to calm his nerves.

His seatmate appears to be a young guy, probably around his age. He wears a comfortable-looking blue hoodie and has already fallen asleep, despite the cup of coffee he has half-empty sitting on his table. Jeno is internally grateful that he hasn’t had the joy of sitting beside someone rude or smelly or overly talkative, so he accepts this sleepy yet caffeinated boy. 

The scene out the window makes his stomach flip, so he avoids letting his gaze drift in that direction. 

The music helps him zone out, but he takes out one of his AirPods when he sees someone talking to the flight attendant standing nearby. He manages to catch the latter half of the conversation.

“Some guy’s in pain in first class. A lot of groaning, whatever. I think he’s injured, because he’s bleeding from his hand,” the man describes, looking skeptical. “I tried talking to him but he was unresponsive.”

“I’ll check it out,” the attendant decides, and they head back to the front of the plane together, the attendant leading the way.

“You okay?”

Jeno jumps. He suddenly notices that his seatmate is awake, and looking right at him with a bit of a concerned expression. Jeno is too startled to say anything, so the boy gestures to his hands in his lap. “You’ve been fidgeting with your fingers and bouncing your knees for the past five minutes,” he points out.

He glances down. “I guess I am… I didn’t notice.”

“Flight anxiety?” he asks, curiously.

Jeno nods, a bit embarrassed. “Yeah. I don’t fly often. I don’t like it much.”

“I’ve never enjoyed it, either. Our instincts refuse to believe that planes are one of the safest ways to get around,” the boy says thoughtfully. “I think it’s all the movies’ fault. Always showing them crashing, for the drama.”

Jeno laughs. “Yeah, probably.”

The boy takes a sip from his coffee cup. “Why are you flying, then? If you don’t fly often?”

“I’m going to Busan to check out a research opportunity,” he explains simply. “I go to school in Daejeon, but I’m planning for postgrad.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Fancy.”

“What about you?”

“I live there. Go to school, and everything. I was just in Seoul for a friend’s wedding. Damn, I’m tired,” he remarks. “It’s been a long couple of nights.”

“I’m sorry,” Jeno tells him. He knows what exhaustion feels like. As a student, it really wears you down, physically and mentally. He thinks for a minute of all the assignments he has to complete upon returning to Daejeon, and he cringes. Not looking forward to it.

He hears a sudden scream, from the front of the plane. Ripping out the other AirPod, he cranes his neck to try and see down the aisle, but it’s fruitless unless he wants to climb on the boy in the seat next to him. 

“Can you see?” he asks anxiously to him.

The boy is fully alert. “The flight attendant is… running.”

Jeno frowns, panic lighting up in his heart. Why the hell would a flight attendant be running on the plane? Maybe one of the passengers harassed her. 

There are more screams, and suddenly there’s a flash as the attendant runs by, a look of pure fear on her face as she pants, continuing to scream, gripping the back of the seat behind them. Before Jeno even has a chance to process anything, another person comes sprinting down the aisle, throwing himself at the flight attendant.

Jeno sees blood, and his mind spins, dizzy. He notices the way the person is gripping the attendant’s shoulders, digging his… teeth (?) into her neck. The sick sound of tearing flesh and screaming makes his blood turn to acid. 

The person (is it even a person?) stands, the attendant having fallen to the floor with blood gushing out of her neck in nauseating pools on the floor. Jeno is taken aback by the paleness of his skin, and his uneven, staggering stance. It throws itself at the nearest passenger across the aisle, inciting more blood-chilling screeches.

Jeno is frozen to his seat, unable to move as he clutches at the wall. The thing is not even five feet away from him. 

When it’s done with that passenger, it stands up again, its jaw dripping red with a wild expression. Jeno lets out an unconscious whimper, and this attracts its attention, because before he knows it, the thing has turned to him. And it’s jumping.

Before he can scream, the boy in front of him swings his backpack at the person, having been the only obstacle between the two. It falls to the floor, writhing, but not dead. At all. It’s very much still alive. Someone further up the plane screams, and the thing is sent running up the aisle. 

Jeno is breathing heavily, trying to regain some sort of comprehension and thought as chaos goes on around him. But he manages to be the only one noticing that the attendant, who should’ve been dead from all the blood loss, is moving on the floor. 

He finds himself clutching onto the arm of the boy next to him, who had unknowingly backed up into Jeno’s seat to put more space in between them and the aisle. The boy sees it at about the same time. He jerks in surprise, grabbing desperately for his backpack again as his only means of defense.

In the row in front of them, a baby is crying in such a shrill tone that has Jeno shuddering. Screams come from people that are _dying._

Or not.

The flight attendant has begun attacking, too. 

“What’s going on?” Jeno asks breathlessly, to no one at all. His voice shakes as much as his arms and legs do.

The boy seems to handle panic better than Jeno does. “We need to contain them. Each person they kill creates another one,” he says, putting the dots together.

Just as he says that, a voice comes over the speaker. “Attention passengers, we will be making an emergency landing in Daejeon. I am sorry for the inconvenience. We will be landing in two minutes.”

Jeno grips the boy’s hoodie sleeve tighter. “Two minutes.” He looks desperately around, noticing that some men on the plane have begun attempting to shove the things in the bathrooms. It’s working, for the most part. Someone newly bitten is shoved in with the rest, and it’s sickening to hear the pleads of the person who still appears to be lucid, but will eventually succumb.

_To what?_ Jeno thinks.

The boy looks Jeno in the eyes. “Put your backpack on.”

Jeno does so, despite how shaky his. He swears he’s going to pass out. Panic is taking over his body. He’s on an airplane and there are murderous _things_ on the plane and there’s no way for him to escape. No escape.

The boy notices his panic growing. Through the noise of the turbulence and the screaming, he says to him, “A minute and thirty seconds. Then we’re leaving.”

One of the things breaks out of the bathroom doors and Jeno flinches at the increasing screams. 

“A minute fifteen,” the boy repeats. “When the plane stops moving, we run. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jeno breathes out, grateful for this boy who has a level head despite the chaos. He might be dead without him. _He might have died already._

“It’s the apocalypse!” some man with a baritone voice yells out, anguished. It sends chills up Jeno’s spine. “We’ll all die! You can’t avoid the end!”

“Don’t listen,” the boy instructs. “Don’t listen to them.”

Jeno tries to breathe evenly, mapping out his escape, but it’s looking more futile as another thing escapes the hold. He feels himself going light-headed. He might faint.

Thirty seconds. The plane has landed, and is slowing. Will they manage to get off, if they land this quickly? Jeno can’t even think that far ahead.

The plane comes to a stop. The boy has grabbed Jeno’s wrist and is pulling him out of his seat. Jeno follows on unstable feet, his other hand clutching the strap of his backpack. He almost believes they’ve got a straight shot till one of the things emerges from the row ahead of them. Jeno screams, his blood running cold all in the span of a second, but the thing lurches in the direction of the passengers in the other side of the aisle. 

He finds himself being pulled past the creature, his pant leg skimming it, as he tries to ignore the gorey sound of flesh that he’ll never be able to forget. 

He and the boy push through the crowd of traffic, before they finally burst onto the ramp and are running down that narrow passageway alongside other panicked people. When they reach the wider hub of the airport, Jeno is faced with televisions displaying a news channel.

“Zombie Apocalypse 2020.”


	2. Chapter Two- Jaehyun POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaehyun is on the 14th floor of his workplace when it strikes.

_Seoul, South Korea  
March 28, 2020, 2:43 PM_

The coffee burns Jaehyun’s tongue and he jerks back. Sighing, he sets the cup down beside his computer. He’s been so out of it today, and he doesn’t even know why.

“You really shouldn’t be drinking coffee after 2pm, right?”

Nevermind. He knows why.

He looks up to see the tall man that he’d thought he’d never see again, leaning against his desk with a smug little smirk. 

“I don’t care,” Jaehyun says simply, opening up his Word document to start editing the next project.

“You’ll be even more grumpy if you’re tired.”

He huffs. “Johnny, leave me alone. Go back to work.”

Johnny gives him a combative look. “You haven’t seen me in five years. I thought you’d like to see me.”

“You are my ex-boyfriend. I don’t know if you’ve forgotten.”

“We’re coworkers now, so we should start fresh.”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “Okay, but some other day, okay? I have a really stressful project to work on and you’re not helping.”

He senses the tension and backs off. He sticks his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “I see. I’ll catch you later, then?”

Jaehyun doesn’t respond. He just pretends to be working until he leaves, breathing a sigh of relief when he’s nowhere to be seen. His head aches a little, and his heart, too.

He and Johnny were high school sweethearts. Things ended when neither of them could find it in them to make the sacrifices to stay together when the real, working world would separate them. And now, somehow, they’ve ended up at the same editing firm in Seoul. Jaehyun remembers how hot his blood had become when he saw Johnny for the first time in years, in his boss’ office wearing a button-up shirt and a jacket. 

Johnny had been excited to see him, but Jaehyun the opposite. He didn’t need this part of his past coming back. What’s done is done, and Jaehyun firmly believes in that. Johnny is delusional if he thinks there’s any way it can be made to work again. Hopefully he wants to just be friends again.

He pushes all thoughts of Johnny out of his mind as he focuses on finishing his project. The deadline is in two days and he isn’t as done with it as he’d like to be. He runs a hand through his hair, but when he brings his arm down, he knocks over his coffee. It forms a small puddle and stains his white sleeve as he quickly picks it up. 

_Today’s a bad day._

On his way to the bathroom to clean up the mess, he notices his coworkers are in more of a buzz than usual. Maybe there’s some new workplace drama he isn’t aware of. He couldn’t care less.

The door swishes shut behind him as he walks up to the sink and sticks his sleeve under the hot water. He isn’t exactly sure how to clean a coffee stain, but this is a start, he supposes. Jaehyun catches his own gaze in the mirror, noticing how thin his cheekbones are. Work has been catching up to him after graduation. Sighing, he vows to himself to get a little more sleep each night. It’s bound to make his work performance better, anyway.

He hears the door open very suddenly, the man yelling. He’s got a wild look in his eyes that startles him. The man throws himself against the door, trying to search for a lock on the knob.

“What are you doing?” Jaehyun asks incredulously. 

“This is the only safe place,” the man answers in a sob, his back up against the door.

Jaehyun furrows his eyebrows, taken aback. “What the hell do you mean? What’s going on?”

Spit flies from his mouth, his chest rising up and down, pained. “It’s the apocalypse.” He lets out a shaky breath. “There’s people that have become _monsters_ down there. People are dying. And then coming back to life.”

Jaehyun doesn’t bother asking if it’s a prank because he can see how shaken the man looks. He doesn’t know what to do first. But he does know that the bathroom isn’t a very safe spot, at least not for long. He has to leave.

He moves forward. “Let me out.”

“Do you want to _die_?” the man shouts. “You’ll never make it out. They’re all over the first floor. They’re in the stairwells.”

“I’d rather die out there,” Jaehyun snaps, wrenching the doorknob out of his hold and slipping out of the room. Here, everything is in chaos. People are running around with pure fear in their eyes. Jaehyun’s heart feels like it’s beating out of his chest. He’s on the 14th floor of an office building. In other words, he’s basically trapped.

He figures he has no other choice than trying to escape. Grabbing his briefcase from his desk as a weapon, he takes a steadying breath and heads for the stairwell. Just fourteen floors. And then he’ll be on the ground. He doesn’t know what he’ll find there, but he’ll deal with it when that happens.

Surprisingly, the stairwell is fairly empty. _I guess no one wants to be caught in here alone_. Jaehyun runs down the stairs as fast as his body can allow him without tripping. He can hear strange groaning noises from the floors down. Glancing down the stairwell… he sees bright red. It nearly makes him lose his balance. His clammy hands are gripping the metal. His breath comes with difficulty. 

_I’m going to die_ , he thinks, like a mantra. At the sight of the blood, he’s lost his mind. 

His heart nearly stops at the sound of sprinting up the stairs. One of the… creatures is flying up the stairs. Towards him. It looks like a human, just so pale and with a twisted, inhuman posture. 

Jaehyun tightens his grip on his briefcase, swinging it at the creature’s gaping face, sending it back down one flight of stairs. It’s barely disabled for a second before running back up, and this time, out of panic, Jaehyun slams the briefcase so that its head is pinned between the briefcase and the ground. The cracking of the skull and the splattering of blood make Jaehyun’s stomach turn, but the adrenaline prevents him from throwing up.

The creature is lifeless now. Jaehyun backs against the wall, heart pounding so hard he can barely think.

“Dude, what are you doing here?” Johnny’s voice comes from the door that has just opened up. This must be the 10th floor, Jaehyun figures, by the sign-

“Jaehyun,” he repeats. His eyes are wide, looking at him as if he’s gone insane. “I heard the noises out here. What are you doing in the stairwell? You’ll get killed.”

Jaehyun glares, tired of his criticism. “What other option is there? The elevators will be full and we can’t exactly jump out the window and expect to survive. It’s down the stairs or die.”

“You can hide-”

“What, hide till they find you? Till someone rescues you? You can’t expect the military to come marching in to save employees at an editing firm. You could be stuck for days,” Jaehyun rants on, his voice growing louder and louder and shakier. 

Johnny grabs his arm, pulling him closer. “Shh. They can hear you.”

He yanks his arm back. “We need to get down there before the stairwell clogs. It’s our best chance.” Jaehyun grabs his briefcase again and starts jogging down the stairs.

There’s a heavy sigh from behind him, and Johnny’s footsteps follow his. 

The descent is maddening. Jaehyun nearly slips in puddles of blood countless times. He can hear screaming from outside the stairwell, meaning at least some of the creatures have managed to get past the doors. 

He’s nearly dizzy from how many stairs he’s ran down. 

A creature comes toward them on one of the turns, and Jaehyun is so startled he slips in blood, falling backward against his elbows, pain shooting through his arms. But the pain is overridden by the fear of the thing coming towards him. 

Luckily, Johnny swings his umbrella, managing to daze it while he helps Jaehyun to his feet. Jaehyun has no time to thank him; they can only keep running. 

“Did you drive here?” Jaehyun asks breathlessly.

“Yeah, I’ve got my car in the parking garage,” Johnny confirms. 

“Good, because I don’t think taking the bus is a good idea right now.” He happens to glance out the window. The streets are in chaos, with inhuman looking people running around, jumping on and attacking pedestrians. They look like they’re taking bites out of their necks. 

Jaehyun takes comfort in the fact that it is possible to not be seen. They just can’t run into anything. 

The final three sets of stairs have mass amounts of creatures. He can tell by the excessive screeching and groaning noises. They pound on the doors, and Jaehyun assumes if anyone were to open it, they’d be pushing through. That’s probably how the others got into the other levels. 

He also notices the same kinds of noises from above him. Which isn’t good at all. 

Johnny looks tense. He’s got streaks of blood on his face, but his jaw is tight with determination. They lock gazes for a second, and the thoughts they shared are mutual. They’ll run.

So that is what they do. Dodging past screeching monsters, using their limited tools as means of defense. There are so many times when Jaehyun could feel their breath on his skin and he was so close to death. So, so close. 

They make it to the very bottom amidst the chaos and are pushing the bottom floor door open into a room that smells like death. There are bodies everywhere that are bloody and reanimating, and people that have been attacked and are in the process of death.

Jaehyun tries not to pay too much attention. He and Johnny take one of the emergency exit doors out of the building, being quiet as to not be spotted. The fresh air hits Jaehyun and suddenly he can breath again.

But they’re still running on the sidewalk, their immediate destination the parking garage down the street. 

They haven’t even made it a couple feet before Johnny shouts, “Watch out!” and there’s a tight grip on his wrist, pulling him backward so much he almost falls over.

A half second later, a body falls onto the cement in front of him with a thud. Jaehyun gasps, eyes round as he watches it pull itself to its feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know your thoughts! 
> 
> from now on, the chapters will be posted one at a time.

**Author's Note:**

> Please read! ~
> 
> This story will have alternating chapters from Jeno's and Jaehyun's points of view, so chapter 2 will be from Jaehyun's POV, etc. 
> 
> Also, PLEASE NOTE the major character death tag. There will be lots of it. 
> 
> And I'm only human, so I can't realistically give every member of NCT equal prevalence in the story without it being extremely long or clunky. Some of them will only be minor characters, and only have a scene or two, just FYI. I tried to include as many as possible without going overboard.
> 
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
